R. G. Eves 1916 Portrait Drawings, Young Soldier & the Artist’s Father William Eves (Auction 2026-06-05, Lot 24C)

$642.50

A pair of intimate works on paper by Reginald Grenville Eves RA (British, 1876-1941), each signed “R. G. Eves” at lower left and dated 1916 at lower right. The larger sheet, executed in black chalk, presents “A Young Soldier” in half-length, his open collar and softly modeled features rendered with the smoky, atmospheric handling that became Eves’s hallmark in his wartime and post-war commissions. The sitter’s gaze drifts past the viewer, the chalk pooled in the hollows of the cheek and throat to suggest both youth and the weight pressed upon it. Eves, later appointed an official war artist and elected to the Royal Academy in 1939, produced numerous portraits of servicemen during the Great War, and this drawing belongs squarely to that body of work.

The companion sheet, in pencil, depicts the artist’s father, William Eves, in three-quarter view: a venerable head with full white moustache, hooded eyes, and the slight forward set of an old man taking stock. According to a label accompanying the drawing, William Eves fought on the Union side during the American Civil War and is said to have been present with President Abraham Lincoln on the night of his assassination at Ford’s Theatre in 1865, a tantalizing family tradition that, if borne out, places this sitter at the hinge of nineteenth-century American history. The portrait was drawn the year before William’s death and carries the quiet authority of a son recording a father whose life had touched events far larger than his own.

Together the two sheets, made in the same year, frame the arc of military experience across two generations and two continents: an anonymous young Briton on the eve of, or in the midst of, the trenches, and an aged American veteran whose war had ended half a century earlier.

About the artist: “Eves was born in London in 1876. He won the Trevelyan Goodall scholarship in art and entered the Slade School of Fine Art. In 1901 he exhibited at the Royal Academy for the first time, and after 1912 he exhibited at least 2 works every year until his death in 1941 (with the exception of 1931). He painted the portraits of many distinguished figures including George VI, Sir Ernest Shackleton, Thomas Hardy, the Queen of Spain and the Archbishop of Canterbury. Many of his works hang in the National Portrait Gallery. Eves was appointed Royal Academician in 1939 and became a war artist in 1940. He died in 1941.” (source: artist’s bio on Science Museum Group website)

Provenance: private Santa Fe, New Mexico USA collection; ex-private Maine, USA collection

Condition: Very Good. A few small smudges to “Soldier” and some minor areas of foxing to “William Eves”; both commensurate with age. Otherwise, both are very nice with clear imagery and good detail. Both signed and dated below drawing. Each fitted with a custom matte with a protective plastic film and an informative collection label at lower left; have not been examined outside of film.